GHAZI ABAD VILLAGE, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan -- More than 1,400 people are reported dead and thousands of others injured as aid workers continue to battle to get to a remote mountainous region of Afghanistan following a devastating earthquake that flattened villages.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government's chief spokesman, said on September 2, two days after the 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck near the city of Jalalabad close to the Pakistan border, that the death tolled had reached 1,411, with more than 3,100 others injured.
"This village is completely destroyed. There's no one alive. We request the government to take care of the people of the village. The damage is beyond our capabilities, we can't remove the stone, the rubble," Sediqullah, the tribal leader of the village of Ghazi Abad in Nangarhar province, told RFE/RL.
A resident of the village added: The village is gone, there's nothing left."
The Taliban-led government has not been officially recognized by any country besides Russia, although aid groups have attempted to maintain contacts despite barriers put up by the de facto rulers.
Amnesty International has put out a call for "urgent humanitarian aid," but the London-based rights organization also blasted the Taliban for making rescue operations more difficult. It also assailed Pakistan for its forced repatriation of nearly 2 million Afghan refugees, saying it exasperated the woes.
“The Taliban de facto authorities have also been responsible for the shrinking of operations of humanitarian and aid agencies in the country due to restrictive policies and a ban on Afghan women working for the UN as well as other NGOs in Afghanistan. This is part of the Taliban’s systematic attack on human rights in the country," Amnesty said in a statement.
International organizations preparing assistance have made efforts to stress that all aid will go to the victims and not into the hands of the Taliban leaders.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world organization was working with authorities to "swiftly assess needs, provide emergency assistance, and stand ready to mobilize additional support."
The disaster comes at a time when the impoverished country struggles with cutbacks in international aid over the Taliban's seizure of power and the return of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees from neighboring countries.
"The villages there are built in a way that the homes are basically in a stepped terrace situation," Salam Al-Janabi, the UNICEF spokesman in Kabul, told RFE/RL.
"It means these homes are toppling on top of each other. And this is why we're seeing such large numbers of casualties."
Al-Janabi said "at the moment you have all UN agencies in Afghanistan surging over there," and that some 600 homes were destroyed.
"Where are these families staying? Where are these children staying? Maybe it will be fine for just now to stay under a tent...within the next three weeks it's going to get colder in this area very soon."
Injured survivors were being airlifted from the remote, mountainous region by helicopter. Taliban officials said the terrain made it difficult to get aid and emergency workers to the scene.
Afghanistan is often hit by earthquakes, with the last one occurring in October 2023. In that case, the death toll rose steadily as emergency work continued. The Taliban gave a final figure of 4,000 dead, although the United Nations said the figure was around 1,500.
The latest quake struck around 11:45 p.m. on August 31 and was centered some 27 kilometers northeast of Jalalabad in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province, according to the US Geological Survey(USGA).
Modelling by the USGA earlier suggested that the estimated number of deaths could rise to hundreds of people.
The USGA said the quake was 8 kilometers deep, a relatively shallow level that often causes greater damage than deeper temblors.
A 4.5-magnitude quake struck in the region some 20 minutes later, followed by another aftershock of 5.2 magnitude, according to the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ).
Residents of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad -- more than 300 kilometers away -- reported feeling buildings shaking.
Residents of Kabul -- about 100 kilometers away -- were also shaken.
The quake comes after Nangarhar Province was hit by heavy flooding over the weekend that killed at least five people and destroyed crops and property.
